Nokia, IBM Mobilize Lotus Notes

Nokia and IBM on Thursday teamed up to offer IBM Lotus Notes support to several Nokia S60-based mobile devices and smart phones, giving 80 million device users access to Lotus email directly from more than 40 different Nokia handhelds.

The two companies said the partnership opens up new market opportunities for IBM Lotus Notes, which has roughly 140 million licensed users globally, as Nokia customers can now purchase Lotus Notes and access its collaboration capabilities on the go.

According to Nokia, more than 80 million Nokia S60 3rd Edition devices have shipped globally as of July and all of those users can connect to their corporate email accounts via Lotus Domino Server software, known as Lotus Notes Traveler. The software offers real time access to email, calendar, address book, journal and to-do list data. It will be available next month.

IBM's Institute for Business Value said that this year marks the first time more people globally will have a mobile device rather than a land-line phone. IBM also predicts that there will be more than 1 billion mobile Web users by 2011, marking a significant shift in the way people interact with the Web. IBM noted that mobile devices now outnumber television sets, credit cards and personal computers globally.

"This collaboration means nearly 90 percent of business email can be mobilized with Nokia devices, without needing to purchase additional servers, middleware or licenses," said Nokia senior vice president Soren Petersen in a statement. "With the presence, position and technology that IBM have in the corporate email market, they are an essential partner for us in enterprise. People need to be connected to their email, information and network when they are out of the office and that has to be done conveniently and on their terms. Lotus Notes Traveler for Nokia devices is a great example of that."

IBM's vice president of Lotus Software, Kevin Cavanaugh, agreed.

"We are literally freeing millions of people using Nokia's Symbian platform from having to rely on a desktop or laptop to access their important business communications," he said in a statement.

Nokia devices compatible with IBM Lotus Notes Traveler include the E60, E70 and E80 series; the N70, N80 and N90 series; and a host of others.

The Nokia S60 and IBM Lotus Notes integration fall in line with big blue's Tomorrow at Work initiative, which examines a changing work environment to anticipate technological, business, societal and cultural trends. As part of the initiative, IBM has also mobilized Lotus Sametime for instant messaging and unified communications, Lotus Connections for social network and Lotus Quickr for social content sharing.